Remembering Charlie [Hardcover]

Jerry Epstein (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Published on the centenary of Charlie Chaplin's birth, this bountiful book is likely to be greeted as a landmark in film reminiscences. Epstein celebrates the late master of mime with fond recollections of the years he worked with (on Limelight , A King in New York and A Countess from Hong Kong ) and was a close friend of Chaplin. Three hundred photographs are included, taken by Chaplin's wife Oona, Epstein and others, all revealing aspects of the inimitable actor from his boyhood to his death in 1977. The memoir visits the London slums where Chaplin grew up with abjectly poor parents and traces the international star in America through the decades when the "little tramp" created silent and talking movies. Chaplin's suspected Communist sympathies and scandals about his personal life are covered, but only cursorily in a book that emphasizes his enduring legacy.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (March 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385262825
• ISBN-13: 978-0385262828
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 10 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,487,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, interesting, honest - excellent, January 13, 2006

By 

Snorre Smari Mathiesen "Buster" (Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remembering Charlie (Hardcover)

REMEMBERING CHARLIE is mainly about the author Jerry Epstein's friendship between Chaplin and the production of Limelight, A King in New York, A Countess From Hong Kong and the never finished film The Freak.

It is simply excellent. Marlon Brando once said that "friends don't write books about their friends." I can see his point, but no worry about this one. This is a book written with a warm heart, an account from a friend attempting to tell the world about Charlie Chaplin the man as well as the artist; and his attempt is more than satisfying. Chaplin's periodical arrogance and self-consiousness was a part of him, and Epstein is honest with that, but always with understanding. He wasn't "an egotistical tyrant" as Brando wrote in his autobiography -- he was a human being with both human strenghts and human weaknesses and a remarkable talent.

Along with Chaplin's autobiography, David Robinson's book and his son Charlie Jr.'s, this is the most interesting book I've ever read about the man I consider to be the film medium's undisputed genius of all time. His last three movies and the joy and suffering behind them are described to last detail, plenty of the information has never been as much as mentioned previously.

REMEMBERING CHARLIE offers a unique portrait of Chaplin as a father and friend; he was charming and arrogant, openhearted and impossible to compromise with. The book also includes 280 pictures taken from both his movies and private life, many of whom have never been available in public.

Recommended to all Chaplin-fans and newcomers who simply are curious about him.